Terms of Use
VSA Analytics is a reporting tool that offers colleges and universities a robust data analytics platform for benchmarking and a rich, integrated national dataset to advance institutional data capacity.
VSA Analytics participants will have access to exclusive institution-level national datasets, cleaned and merged at appropriate levels, for analysis and reporting. Sources include: selected IPEDS surveys; Higher Education Research & Development survey expenditure figures (NSF); the College Scorecard, and the Student Achievement Measure (SAM). There are over 400 variables and over 9 years of data available.
VSA Analytics members will have access to an interactive benchmarking tool that utilize data from the VSA Analytics National Datasets. The interactive platform is only be available to paid subscribers. Institutional users can create custom benchmarking reports and download data for internal use.
Institutional Agreement
As a VSA participant, the institution agrees to abide by the following conditions, reporting requirements, data sharing stipulations, and timelines.
Use of data, analytic tools, and reports provided by the VSA Analytics program.
Participation in VSA Analytics will grant the institutional users access to analysis tools and reports, national benchmarking data and other data products supplied by the VSA program. These offerings and services are exclusive benefits of participation in VSA Analytics. Institutional users may access analysis tools and reports only through the secure VSA Analytics portal.
Users will not share analysis tools and reports, national benchmarking data and other data products supplied by the VSA Analytics program with any third parties or entities outside of the institution.
Any employee of the institution with the appropriate institutional domain name in his or her e-mail address may request access to the VSA Analytics benchmarking tool by contacting the primary contact. The primary contact is authorized to create accounts for members of the campus community. Contractors affiliated with the institution or any other third parties are not authorized to have accounts on the VSA Analytics program. Institutions will not share access to their VSA accounts with any individual who is not a current employee of the institution.
The VSA data products and tools are intended for analyses, benchmarking and reporting to internal and external university audiences, which may include system offices, governing boards, accreditors, and governmental entities. Some of the data sources will include licensing agreements with VSA Analytics that may limit how the data is to be used or disseminated outside the institution. These limitations will be displayed in the footnote areas of each report. Institutional users agree to observe those limits. If questions arise about the use or distribution of data sets, reports, or tools, users should contact the VSA Analytics team for guidance.
Conditions of Participation
Any college or university in the United States or its territories is eligible to participate in the VSA Analytics program.
The cost to subscribe to VSA Analytics is $2,000 per institution. APLU and AASCU members, as well as VFA participants receive a 50% discount. Each subscribing institution will assign a primary contact who can add additional users from their campus community at no additional cost. The VSA is open only to institutions of higher education. An institution may withdraw its participation in VSA Analytics at any time with a written notification to the VSA Analytics Executive Director by the institution’s president or senior administrator. After the formal date of withdrawal, access will be removed for all individuals from the campus domain.
The institution acknowledges that it is receiving value in the form of access to analysis tools and reports, access to national benchmarking data and data products, access to and use of the VSA Analytics website, documentation, and opportunities for professional development, and in return the VSA Analytics is receiving value in the form of the institution’s participation and compliance with this agreement.
Participation in VSA Analytics is a voluntary activity. The institution understands and agrees that Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, their officers, employees, and board members, and VSA contractors have supplied VSA Analytics as a service to participating institutions and bear no responsibility for any errors of fact that appear in the reports, within the data sets.
The above terms and conditions constitute an agreement by and between the institution and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU), the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), and VSA Analytics.